Musicians and record labels believe that YouTube, Google’s video sharing platform, isn’t paying a fair share to artists for the music YouTube users listen to for free. It’s a law that was passed 18 years ago - a lifetime in internet years - that governs, in part, what happens to copyrighted material when it’s shared online. Some 200 musicians including U2, Taylor Swift, Vince Staples, and Paul McCartney signed an open letter to Congress about The Digital Millennium Copyright Act - or DMCA for short. For more information, please contact a member of Loeb & Loeb's Advanced Media and Technology Group.Ĭircular 230 Disclosure: To assure compliance with Treasury Department rules governing tax practice, we inform you that any advice (including in any attachment) (1) was not written and is not intended to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of avoiding any federal tax penalty that may be imposed on the taxpayer, and (2) may not be used in connection with promoting, marketing or recommending to another person any transaction or matter addressed herein.Do you regularly use YouTube to listen to music? Well, some very big-name artists are urging Congress to change the rules when it comes to music posted to the social video site. This client alert does not create or continue an attorney client relationship nor should it be construed as legal advice or an opinion on specific situations. This client alert is a publication of Loeb & Loeb LLP and is intended to provide information on recent legal developments. We decline to shift a substantial burden from the copyright owner to the provider." 2007) that said "The DMCA notification procedures place the burden of policing copyright infringement - identifying the potentially infringing material and adequately documenting infringement - squarely on the owners of the copyright. Relying on legislative history of the DMCA and case law, the court explained that "o let knowledge of a generalized practice of infringement in the industry, or of a proclivity of users to post infringing materials, impose responsibility on service providers to discover which of their users' postings infringe a copyright would contravene the structure and operation of the DMCA." The court also quoted language from a Ninth Circuit decision, Perfect 10, Inc. However, the court pointed out that YouTube designated an agent, and when it received specific notice that a particular item infringed a copyright, it swiftly removed it. The plaintiffs (Viacom International, Comedy Partners, Country Music Television, Paramount Pictures and Black Entertainment Television) claimed that "tens of thousands of videos on YouTube, resulting in hundreds of millions of views, were taken unlawfully from Viacom's copyrighted works without authorization" and that "Defendants had 'actual knowledge' and were 'aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity apparent,' but failed to do anything about it." § 512(c)) provides that a service provider (as defined in the Copyright Act) is not liable for claims of copyright infringement relating to content provided by users as long as it does not have "actual knowledge that the material or an activity using the material on the system or network is infringing" and "in the absence of such actual knowledge, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent." (A service provider must also comply with several DMCA requirements, such as registering a designated agent to receive take-down requests, in order to qualify for the safe harbor.) On the other hand, the decision may provide some comfort for website operators that host user-provided content as long as they comply with all of the requirements of the DMCA. This decision is a major set-back for copyright holders who must file DMCA take-down notices for their copyrighted content that has been posted to sites like YouTube without authorization. The court granted summary judgment for the defendants, holding that the DMCA requires more than mere knowledge of infringement in general. The issue before the court was whether a website operator is ineligible for the DMCA safe harbor if it is generally aware that there is infringing content on its site (as the plaintiff copyright holders argued) or if it is ineligible only if it has actual knowledge of specific and identifiable infringements of individual items. A federal district court in the Second Circuit held that YouTube is entitled to the DMCA 512(c) safe harbor because it had insufficient notice of the particular infringements.
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